Deformation Monitoring of Offshore Platform Using the Persistent Scatterer Interferometry Technique

Abstract

One of the problems that occur during the exploitation of oil and gas is offshore platform deformation. It could occur due to the environments load as well as the extraction of oil and gas itself under the seabed that caused reservoir compaction. Offshore platform deformation may affect the platform structural integrity and cause loss of production, thus it is very important to monitor its occurrences. Offshore platform deformation monitoring has been carried out using the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) technique until recently. Even though the technique has proven its worth for the job, it has however some limitations, the most prominent is it could only monitor selected portion of the offshore platform. Thus, this study presents an attempt of detecting and monitoring the deformation phenomenon of an offshore platform using the Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) technique. This technique would overcome some of the limitations of the previous (GPS) deformation monitoring technique. A total of 11 high resolution TerraSAR-X images (i.e., 3 m in StripMap mode) were acquired from Aug, 2012 to Apr, 2013 for this purpose, while one of the offshore platforms in South China Sea is being used as monitored platform. Preliminary results showed that detail and sensitive deformations could be detected by this technique. In addition, analysis results in the form of mean deformation velocity map and displacement time series would allow us to further understand the behaviour of offshore platform deformation.